The wives of ministers in the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar are richer than their husbands, details of movable and immovable assets declared by the ministers for the year ended December 31, 2011 have revealed.
The property details of the ministers and their family members were posted in the Bihar government website before the Assembly election conducted last October-November as per the directive of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The ministers, whose spouses have earned more movable assets, are: Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh, Health Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Building Construction Minister Damodar Raut, Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra and Water Resource Minister Vijay Kumar Chowdhary.
According to the details, Narendra Singh has movable assets worth Rs 25.50 lakh while his wife Sagarmani Devi possess more property than Singh.
She has movable assets worth Rs 27.42 lakh.
Similarly, health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey’s movable and immovable properties were less than his wife.
Choubey has movable and immovable assets worth Rs 61.24 lakh while his wife Nita Choubey owns property worth Rs 94.99 lakh, over Rs 30 lakh more than her husband.
Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi, who also holds the charge of finance department, has movable assets worth Rs 25.78 lakh, while his wife J S Modi is owner of movable assets worth Rs 29.84 lakh.
State water resource minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, a close aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has movable properties worth Rs 15 lakh while his wife owns movable assets worth Rs 20.28 lakh.
If the land, house and plots are added together, Choudhary is ahead of his wife in the accumulation of assets.
The figures further revealed that Tourism Minister Sunil Kumar Pintu’s wife has assets more than him which is worth Rs 40.45 lakh while Pintu has declared immovable assets worth Rs 20.09 lakh.
Significantly, there is no uniformity in making public the assets earned by the NDA ministers in Bihar.
There are several ministers who have failed to give details of their movable assets like land and buildings on the ground of non-separation with the family members and they have not even disclosed the value of the jewellery their families have.
Minority Welfare minister Shahid Ali Khan has not either disclosed the value of his immovable property on the ground that separation in the family had not taken place.
Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh had also not furnished the details of the joint properties of his family.
The three women ministers in the Nitish Kumar cabinet Parveen Amanullah (social welfare), Ranu Kumari (industry) and Sukhda Pandey (art and culture) have shown property more than their husbands.
Pandey has movable properties worth Rs 20.55 lakh as against her husband having immovable assets worth Rs 46.23 lakh.
Sahi and his wife has immovable property worth Rs 6.42 crore.
Land reforms and revenue minister Ramai Ram is owner of assets worth Rs 1.25 crore while Sushil Kumar Modi has property worth Rs 1.6 crore.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his son have movable and immovable assets worth Rs 1.62 crore.
